Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban elaborated on the global systemic transition and his country’s grand strategy within it during a lengthy speech at the Balvanyos Free Summer University and Student Camp over the weekend. The over 11,000-word English transcript was published on Monday, which the present piece will summarize for the reader’s convenience. It began with him reaffirming that it’s his Christian duty to promote peace and mocking the EU for its Orwellian “war is peace” mantra.
He then said that the Ukrainian Conflict was a “red pill” for him and proceeded to elaborate on the ten ways in which it opened his eyes to reality. First, there have been enormous casualties on both sides, but each will continue fighting unless external stakeholders diplomatically intervene since they’re convinced that they’ll win. Second, the US went from containing China to waging a proxy war on Russia, which pushed those two together and prompted questions about why the US would do this.
Third, Ukraine’s resilience in spite of its objective economic and demographic weaknesses can be explained by its sense of mission that fills it with a higher purpose, which is to become the West’s eastern military frontier. Fourth, Russia has also proven itself to be impressively resilient, and it’s nowhere near collapsing like Western leaders hubristically predicted. Fifth, the EU has undergone fundamental changes since the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict began two and half years ago.
It now follows the US Democrats’ lead instead of retaining its strategic autonomy, and the traditional Franco-German axis is now challenged like never before by Poland, which has allied with the UK, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia to create a new center of power in Europe. This is actually an old Polish plan (Pilsudski’s “Intermarium” from the interwar period) adapted to contemporary conditions brought about by the Ukrainian Conflict and fully assisted by the US.
Sixth, the West’s standards are no longer universal and it’s experiencing “spiritual solitude” after the entire non-West refused to follow its lead in isolating Russia. Seventh, the biggest problem in the world is the weakness and disintegration of the West caused by its lack of leadership and seemingly irrational policies, which is accelerating China’s rise as its global systemic challenger. Eighth, Western Europe’s worldview is now post-national while Central Europe still believes in the sanctity of the nation-state.
This dichotomy explains the West’s seemingly irrational policies since each half of Europe is operating according to a completely different philosophy. The US is also experiencing a similar division between those like Trump who want it to remain a nation-state and his opponents who want it to become a post-national state. According to Orban, this division owes its origins to the sexual revolution and student rebellions from over half a century ago, which sought to free people from any form of collective identity.
Ninth, the West’s post-national trends are convulsing democracy and leading to friction between the elite/elitism and the people/populism. And finally, the tenth red pill is that Western soft power/values aren’t universal but are actually counterproductive since Russia’s strongest international attraction nowadays is its resistance to LGBTQ. Orban then said that these trends are leading to the rise of the non-West, which he believes first began with China’s admission to the WTO in 2001 and might be irreversible.
Trump’s priority is to rebuild and strengthen North America, to which end he’ll squeeze the US’ European and Asian allies while negotiating better deals with China. His end game is to make the US self-sufficient in energy and raw materials so that it can stand a better chance at retaining its declining position in global affairs. The EU has two options: it can either become an “open-air museum” (passive international actor) absorbed by the US or pursue strategic autonomy in order improve its standing in the world.
What’s needed is more connectivity, a European military alliance with its own defense industry (albeit without federalization), energy self-sufficiency, reconciliation with Russia, and admitting that Ukraine won’t join the EU or NATO. It’ll return to its prior role as a buffer zone and will be lucky if it gets security guarantees in a US-Russian agreement. Poland’s power play will fail because it lacks the resources to replace Germany so Orban expects that his “Polish brothers and sisters” will return to Central Europe.
He also considers all of these changes to be an opportunity. Developments in the US favor Hungary, but it must be careful about any deals it might offer due to the Polish precedent. Warsaw bet everything on Washington and received support for its strategic goals, but now it’s “subject to the imposition of a policy of democracy export, LGBTQ, migration and internal social transformation.” Orban ominously notes that this combination risks of the loss of Polish national identity if these trends continue unabated.
Hungary will remain in the EU, but the bloc’s East-West divisions between those that correspondingly respect the nation-state and those that are moving beyond it will widen. The EU must also accept that it’s the loser in the Ukrainian Conflict, the US will abandon this proxy war, and the EU can’t realistically pick up the tab. All the while, Hungary will rely on China for modernizing its economy and boosting its exports, which will lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.
A Hungarian grand strategy is required in order to maximally take advantage of the opportunities brought about by the ten previously described red pills and their abovementioned consequences. What’s already been decided upon since his government began work on this after the 2022 elections isn’t yet digestible and widely comprehensible by the public, and he said that it’ll take around six months for everything to become clearer for them, but he still shared the gist of what this grand strategy entails.
The first part is what he describes as connectivity, which he explained as being plugged in to both the Eastern and Western halves of the global economy. The second is sovereignty, with a focus on the economic dimension by promoting national companies on the world market, reducing debt, becoming a regional creditor, and boosting domestic production. The final part is bolstering his society’s resilience by halting demographic decline, preserving villages, and maintaining Hungary’s distinct culture.
Orban ended by explaining that all Hungarians across the world must help advance this grand strategy. The global systemic transition is expected to last another 20-25 years so the next generation will be tasked with completing its implementation. Their liberal opponents will try to offset this, but such efforts can be counteracted by recruiting young nationalists to the cause. The impression that one gets after reading through his speech in full is that Orban is this generation’s most visionary European leader.
